And with that confession of faith he knocked the ashes out of his pipe and stumped off to bed. How will it all end? Will the church set its face against the rising tide of democracy and make Canute its patron saint? I don't dare ask John. I wish you were here that we might talk things over! You would be so sympathetic, for you love England dearly, which I fear John does not, and therefore, I feel, cannot understand her. Well, I comfort myself by thinking what I believe you would say: "England has the 'root of the matter' in her, and if a great crisis were to arise, Englishmen will show that they are to-day what they have always been, and the church will follow the higher call. England will never do penance and sit in a sheet, in the face of the nations confessing the 'sins and offenses of her youth,' but she will set her house in order and meet the new age with courage and faith and hope, as she has ever done, and the 'glory of the latter house will be greater than that of the former'! 'As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be,' embodies a great truth which your muddle-headed friend was trying to express. He thought, and alas! he is not alone in so thinking, that the _form_ makes the stability, whereas it is the eternal stability of the English character in which he believes, and so do I." So with these comforting thoughts I am going to bed. My Tory friend was right in one respect--it has not been a restful day! XIV RURAL ENGLAND On leaving "Barchester" we took the road to Gloucester. I think it safe to say that it is the finest road for motoring in England, which is equivalent to saying in the world. The French roads, I am told, are in some ways superior, but so straight and hard and white that travelling on them soon becomes monotonous. Then they are so artificial, running like the road the Tsar is said to have laid out with a ruler, between Petersburg and Moscow! But the English roads run naturally, with many a turn from town to town, just as man first found it easy to walk. Of course we now have roads at home equal to any--for the first year or two--but think how many generations have used these roads, and always, I imagine, kept them in repair. The difference is like that between a granite bridge and one of our new concrete ones. At first there seems nothing to choose between them; but when the rain and frost of a few seasons have done their work, the one has begun to look dingy and shabby, while the other has gained in dignity.